Ted Cutting

Ted Cutting, who has died aged 85, was the presiding genius behind the Aston
Martin DBR1, the scintillatingly aerodynamic car whose racing green curves
swept to victory in the 1959 24-hours of Le Mans.

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The DBR1 at Nurburgring, 1957

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Ted Cutting

6:25PM BST 06 May 2012

Cutting built the five team cars from the ground up. His expertise allowed him to design and engineer everything from the smallest component to the largest body panel, giving him a level of control over the finished vehicle unthinkable in the specialised racing industry of today.

Other cars on the Le Mans track in 1959 included the Ferrari 250GT, the Porsche 550 and the Lotus Elite; but as they fell behind or succumbed to mechanical problems, two three-litre Astons roared on, completing more than 2,700 miles at an average speed of 112.5 miles per hour to claim first and second places. The two cars were just a lap apart; the next closest competitor was a further 25 laps behind.

Only five DBR1s were produced, and surviving examples are so sought after that collectors today are willing to pay well in excess of £10 million to get their hands on one.

Edward (Ted) John Cutting was born in Clapham, south-west London, on October 11 1926. His father was in the motor trade and had served in the Army as a driver to General Allenby. Ted attended Kingston Technical School, and was inspired in his choice of career by his uncle, Will Brookes, a racing mechanic on the Napier team for the driver Selwyn Edge. After leaving college he joined the drawing office of KLG Spark Plugs.

On the outbreak of war Cutting found himself in a reserved occupation, and was called on to design components for wartime production. Towards the end of the conflict he was allowed to enlist in the Fleet Air Arm, only for the fighting to end before he got his wings.

Cutting then became a draughtsman at the Allard Motor Company, and in 1949 applied to join Aston Martin, which had recently been saved from oblivion by David Brown, an owner who in the next decades would apply his initials to the marque’s most celebrated models.

Cutting was initially assigned to redesign the chassis of the DB2, a coupé which also proved successful on the racetrack. In the mid-1950s he was given ultimate responsibility for the DBR1 project.

The idea was to design a world-beating open-top race car to compete in Grands Prix and the World Sportscar Championship, which then featured such celebrated races as the Tourist Trophy at Goodwood, 1,000km at the Nürburgring and Spa, Targa Florio Sicily, and the 24-hours of Sebring and, of course, Le Mans.

Only elements of the gearbox were inherited from a previous design. Otherwise, Cutting was responsible for a wholly new engine, chassis, suspension, braking system, body and styling. In 1957 — its first full season of the Sportscar Championship — DBR1/2 won at Spa (where it also won that year’s Grand Prix) and the Nürburgring. Stirling Moss and Jack Brabham ensured a repeat victory in Germany in 1958, when their DBR1/3 also claimed the Tourist Trophy at Goodwood.

For all its other successes, however, the car had suffered successive failures at Le Mans until 1959. In that year, however, the two Astons avoided mechanical trouble and opened up a vast advantage over the other competitors. The real race was to see whether Maurice Trintignant and Paul Frére, in the second car, would snatch victory from Shelby and Salvadori.

Cutting, appointed chief race car design engineer, went on to create the DBR4 single seater and, in the early 1960s, the DP212, 214 and 215, the last of which still holds the speed record for six-cylinder front-engined cars – well over 200mph.

Despite the fame of the cars, aided by a notable association of the DB5 with Ian Fleming’s James Bond, Aston Martin’s finances were never truly secure in this period, and the marque stopped racing in 1963.

Cutting moved on to the Glacier Bearing Company, designing huge bearings for use in steam turbine engines in ships and power stations. Then, in 1966, he joined Ford to design and engineer chassis structures and running components, such as suspension and brakes, that would underpin a whole range of the company’s models, including the Escort, Capri, Cortina and Granada.

Cutting worked with Ford until 1985, overseeing the standardisation of manufacturing requirements as the company expanded in Europe, and then leading the consultation with the EU in creating automotive legislation, while (jointly with Jim Izzard of Shell) inventing 95 octane fuel and advising the British government on environmental and EU issues in the motor industry.

After retiring he became a consultant, returning to Aston Martin to advise its owner, Victor Gauntlett . He also continued to assist mechanics and owners of the cars he had designed several decades previously – cars whose values had soared .

Ted Cutting’s first wife, Joan, whom he married in 1950, predeceased him. He is survived by his second wife, Dorothy, whom he married in 1998, and by the three daughters of his first marriage.